Do You Like It?
by LeaveTheFrontPorch
Summary: Anna wants to build a garden with Kristoff but he has other plans.


"Do you like it?" Anna looked anxiously at Kristoff, eyes wide as she wrung her hands with worry.

"Well…..yes….." Kristoff said slowly, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably. Anna frowned.

"What's wrong with it?" She furrowed her brows sulkily.

"Nothing!" He responded a little too quickly. Anna continued looking at him expectantly. "It's just…..well….Anna this is a lot of work. You know?"

"I know!" Anna perked up brightly, as if lots of work wasn't an obstacle at all. Easy for her to say, Kristoff thought to himself. She wouldn't be able to do half of this even if she tried. It would have to be him and he was still sore from the long harvesting expedition he just got back from two days ago. But he would never tell her this.

He should have known this would happen. One of the drawbacks to his line of work was being away from Anna, and this last trip took him away from her for four weeks. Every time he was gone longer than a day, Anna used that time to think up something 'fun' for them to do when he got back. It made perfect sense that the project she would conjure would be proportionate to the length of the trip. After all, she had four weeks to think this up. Kristoff looked from Anna's beaming face back to the large sheet of paper on which she had sketched a very elaborate plan for a garden.

"That's why I was thinking it would be perfect to do together!" Anna finished explaining with a satisfied smile. Kristoff stared at her. She raised her eyebrows hopefully, clasped her hands together and bit her lower lip in anticipation of his response. He sighed. Resistance was futile.

"Alright." He conceded and caught Anna as she flung herself into his arms and embraced him with a huge hug. "You've been talking about starting a garden for a long time so we should do it. But I'm telling you Anna, the only place it would work needs a lot of preparation before we can grow anything there. It's loaded with rocks and the ground needs to be plowed up and….."

"Oh thank you! Thank you Kristoff! Now I'll have something to do while you're busy at work! Ooh! I can plant all our favorite vegetables and maybe flowers too? And then I can…" Anna had let go and was now pacing the room and listing off a multitude of prospective plantings. Kristoff cut across her.

"But Anna, I don't know when I'll be able to start this because you know I go back to work tomorrow." Anna stopped cold.

"What? But you just got back?" Kristoff didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the dejected look on her face.

"I'm sorry! But you know this is the busiest season! I promise, it will be the first thing we do as soon as business slows down. Ok?" Kristoff crossed the room to stand in front of her. He ran his large hands slowly up and down Anna's sagging arms, trying to comfort her. He looked concernedly at her sad face. Anna looked up at him. She could see how bad he felt and gave an enormous resigned sigh.

"Ok." She said reluctantly and kicked at a speck of dirt on the floor. Kristoff smiled broadly before scooping her up in his arms and tickling her, forcing her to laugh unbelievably loud. She squirmed out of his arms and began running down the hall towards her room. Kristoff chased after her and was pleased to find instead of ducking inside her room, she was scooting quickly into his …

Days passed and Kristoff was busier than ever. Every morning Anna went down to breakfast to find he had been up, eaten and left hours ago. Every evening she waiting for him to return and he did later than usual, dirty, tired, sweaty and sore. He barely had enough time for a quick conversation and even quicker dinner before heading to bed.

Anna tried to remain patient. She knew he would keep his word, he always did. She just didn't know when he would get a chance to. So she tried instead to spend as much time with Elsa as possible and kept herself entertained by thinking up more ideas for the garden that would eventually happen.

It was now close to two weeks since she had brought it up and Anna was running out of garden ideas to think about that she hadn't already gone over in her mind and sketched out on paper at least a dozen times. Elsa was very busy lately with several new trade negotiations so Anna resorted to one of her childhood games she often played by herself growing up alone in the castle. She wandered from room to room and found a different object in each room that matched a letter in the alphabet. She knew it was silly, but it passed the time. She continued this way until she had covered every room in the castle and then sometimes she would start over.

It was mid- afternoon and Anna was currently in one of the top most towers in the castle. She scoured the shelves, scrunching her face in concentration looking through books and piles of old stuff in storage for anything starting with the letter R. She was almost ready to accept 'red curtain' as her 'R' word and move on, even though she thought using a color was sort of cheating, when she glanced out the window and noticed something strange outside. The tower faced the far side of the castle where no one usually went and there was a person down there. Someone was stretched out on the small patch of grass in the sun. Anna stopped and squinted down through the thick pane of the window.

"What the….." she whispered to herself and pressed her face to the glass. Her eyes grew round as saucers. It was Kristoff!

"What is he doing down there? He said he was working!" she exclaimed to herself loudly. Then her eyes widened even more "Why is his shirt off?"

Not sure whether to be thrilled or furious, Anna began running down the stairs. It took her almost twenty minutes to get down to ground level and out to the far side of the castle and by the time she reached the corner of the castle Kristoff was on the other side of, she had definitely settled on being furious over thrilled. How could he lie to her? It just wasn't like him! The thought had no sooner crossed her mind when Anna rounded the corner and realized where she was.

Kristoff was a good hundred feet away, in the sunny spot she had chosen for her garden. She hadn't even realized it looking down from the tower. She stopped short. He hadn't seen her yet. She slid back behind the corner of the wall and watched. He was no longer lying in the grass resting but was carrying an enormous rock across the garden to pile it on top of what was a low wall that enclosed the garden space. He had already moved all the surface rocks to start the wall and from the looks of it had plowed up a good part of the earth and was now moving the rocks from the dirt to the wall as well. It was a hot day and the spot was in full sun. No wonder he had his shirt off. He was covered in dirt and dripping with sweat. He had a piece of cloth tied around his forehead to keep the sweat out of his eyes as he worked.

Anna watched mesmerized as he carefully placed the huge rock on the top of the wall and turned to get another. He picked up an equally large boulder from the ground and hoisted it up with a grunt. She could see the muscles in his neck strain and his large arms were flexing hard. He tipped the huge rock against his shoulder, adjusting his hands to get a better grip on it, shifting the weight. She saw the rock scrape against his bare chest and how even the weight of the boulder barely touched the hardness of his muscles.

A shiver went up Anna's spine just watching him. No sooner had the pleasant sensation coursed through her body than she felt a sharp pang of guilt. How could she have been so foolish to think he would lie to her? Well, he DID lie, but it was only to surprise her. He had been working on getting her garden ready for her so she didn't have to do any of the work. She smiled softly to herself as she continued watching from afar. He was bending over getting another rock. This one was obviously lighter as he lifted it much faster and easily hooked it under one arm before returning to the half completed wall. Without the rock obstructing her view she got a good look at him, drenched in sweat, smeared in dust and dirt, scratched and scarred. His pants hung across his hips and Anna unconsciously licked her lips as her eyes traveled from his broad shoulders to his chest hair down the center of his body to the wet, dirty trail of hair that ghosted down the center of his firm stomach and disappeared beneath his pants.

She was so preoccupied with watching him, she unwittingly had wandered out from behind her cover and was standing there in the middle of the grass openly staring with her mouth agape. She didn't realize that Sven was lying in the shade on the other side of the garden, munching lazily on some weeds as Kristoff toiled in front of him. She was still debating on whether she should let Kristoff know she was there or not when Sven suddenly noticed Anna standing on the other side of the yard and let out a huge snort of excitement. Anna jumped, saw Sven and began furiously waving her hands at him to keep quiet. Unfortunately this had the opposite effect she had intended and instead of quieting, Sven actually stood up and bellowed loudly. This finally got Kristoff's attention, who was in the middle of hauling a very heavy rock. He stopped and turned on the spot to look and see what had Sven so riled up. He had been expecting a chipmunk or something equally inane. Sven got excited over the most ridiculous things. But the sight of Anna hopping up and down silently and frantically waving her arms made him almost jump out of his skin. He yelped, and dropped the huge rock he was carrying, almost landing it on his foot. He managed to quickly jump out of its way and stood staring at Anna.

"Anna! What are you…. I mean….I just…uhhh…" he grimaced and began rubbing the back of his neck rather forcefully. Anna had turned about eight shades of red and was walking meekly over to the half built garden wall.

"Hi." She said sheepishly.

"Uh, hi?" Kristoff answered, still grimacing. They both stood quiet for a moment before speaking at the same time.

"Kristoff I'm so sorry! I was up in the tower and…"

"Anna, I'm sorry I told you I was working but I wanted to surprise you….." They both stopped and stared at each other and then burst out laughing.

"Why didn't you tell me you were working on the garden! I could have helped you! And you're still sore from your trip! Kristoff you didn't have to…." Anna's eyes were so full of gratitude that Kristoff could hardly stand it. It wasn't her who should be feeling gratitude. He wasn't doing anything she didn't absolutely deserve. For the first time in his life he had a person worth working for. He was the one who was grateful.

"I know but this is hard work Anna… I mean, not for me, it's hard for you. Too hard." He finished softly. Anna looked him up and down.

"It looks like it's pretty hard for you too." She empathized.

"How long were you watching me?" Kristoff asked suspiciously, feeling his cheeks turning pink.

"Not long…." Anna's eyes wandered in mock innocence before returning to his face. "Even if I can't actually help you physically, I could at least…. Keep you company? I mean, the whole point is I wanted to spend time with you, but this….this has just made it so I see less of you…." Anna looked at the ground and shuffled her feet awkwardly. She hated saying anything that would make him feel bad for trying to give her such a sweet surprise, but she also knew she had to explain how she felt. She slowly glanced up at him and saw a look of comprehension slowly creep across his face.

"You're right. I'm so sorry….I just…. You know….uh…..Sometimes you say you're just going to sit there and then you help anyway, and then, you know, stuff happens and I just didn't want that to ….but you're right. I should have told you. " Kristoff finished, feeling rather pathetic and stupid for missing the entire point of Anna's plan. He scratched some dirt off his chest before looking at Anna. Her expression was one of utter confusion.

"Really? When do I say I'm not going to help and then I do and stuff….happens?" He could tell she was trying extremely hard to keep the defensiveness out of her voice and failing slightly. He smiled. Now this was an argument he knew he would win.

"Um, how about the time I was going to replace the wheels on the wagon and you said you wanted to come watch and you ended up trying to do one yourself when I went back to the barn for more oil and the wheel rolled down the hill into the fjord? Or the time I needed to go to the market and you said you were just going to sit in the wagon and wait for me and then decided to help by driving Sven over to where I was and you ended up driving straight into Svetlana's booth and destroying her spinning wheel? Or the time I told Elsa I would clean the windows in the dining hall and you just wanted to hold the bucket of water for me and you ended up getting distracted by Olaf dancing on the lawn and dropping the bucket on my head? And the time…."

"OKAY. I get it!" Anna said loudly. Kristoff stopped and raised his eyebrows, observing her for a moment. She looked slightly cross. He laughed.

"Anna, I love it when you help me. But more than that, I love it that you WANT to help me. You are the only person I've ever met that wants to help other people so much. You are so kind and caring and thoughtful….but just this once, I just wanted to do something FOR you. I was going to tell you when the dirt was ready and the rocks were moved and then we could plant stuff together." He stopped talking and looked to her, searching her eyes for a reaction. He reached out to her, gently touching the collar of her dress, the delicate border of flowers next to her skin. He let his fingers follow the flowered embroidery down the center of her neck, down, down, where it parted slightly just above her breasts. He traced along it until he was barely touching the tiniest bit of skin, and then he stopped, the tip of his finger still against her. He resisted the urge to keep moving it further.

"I guess I do tend to bite off more than I can chew…" Anna said softly. She put her hands over Kristoff's hand that had stopped just above her breast. She pressed it close to her. He could feel her heart beat softly against his palm. She looked up at him and smiled sweetly. "I promise I won't try to do things anymore if you let me come along and keep you company. Ok?"

"Well, I don't know." Kristoff said slowly, swallowing hard as he felt her under his hand, her own small hands pressed to his. "I think I may have changed my mind. I kind of like it the way it is. Maybe I should promise not to ever do a project without you again…." He whispered. He was standing very close to her now. She moved one of her hands up to his face and pushed a sweaty lock of hair out of his eyes. Anna giggled at his obvious lack of concentration. He had been so focused up until now…

"Well how about we keep things as they are then? You keep trying to surprise me and I'll keep trying to discover you?" she asked him, trying to keep her voice from cracking with laughter. Kristoff's face relaxed into a huge grin.

"Sounds perfect." He bent over and kissed her, scooping his hand behind her neck, tipping her head back, savoring her lips. Anna moaned sweetly and placed a small hand against his dirt smeared, sweaty chest before he reluctantly pulled away and stood up. "Well…" he said, clearing his throat and trying to regain composure. "Since you're here now, how about keeping me company while I move the rest of these rocks? That is, unless you can think of something else you would rather…" he attempted to suggest hopefully but was interrupted by Anna's enthusiastic response.

"Great! I'll just sit over here, out of the way!" and she bounded out of his arms and plopped down in the grass with Sven. Kristoff shook the startled look from his face at the sudden change in mood and found himself with nothing left to do but chuckle and continue moving rocks. He moved to the one he dropped earlier and lifted it surprisingly quickly to his chest. Suddenly the rock seemed so much lighter. He knew it wasn't, but it felt lighter all the same. His arms felt stronger, his hands more sure. Anna was telling him a funny story about Elsa eating ice cream. He listened to the sound of her voice and moved rock after rock. Sweat dripped from his brow and soaked the waistband of his pants. His arms were sore from constant flexing and lifting. His legs were taut from bending and hauling. But somehow he never tired. He would never tire of being with Anna. Why hadn't he thought of this before? Somehow, being with her made work easier. He looked over at her lying in the grass next to Sven, one leg dangling over the other, one hand running through Sven's fur and the other through the grass. He tried not to imagine those same hands running over him. He gripped the rock tighter.

"Well?" He called to her, setting the rock down on top of the half wall. He held his arms out gesturing to the garden space. "So far, do you like it?" Anna sat up and smiled at him.

"Love it." She answered seriously. He flashed her a crooked smile and went back to work. Even when she did help, somehow she always made things easier.


End file.
